photo by G. Kirgis
photo by G. Kirgis
They say 10,000 hours makes an expert. If so, the TOPAZ crew is well on their way, with more than 500 hours of ozone lidar data acquired with nearly 2 days left to go in the campaign. To put that in perspective, that is more than 500 hours with two people (Chris and Raul or Guillaume and Andy) sitting in the back of the TOPAZ truck making sure everything is running the way it should. Over the last 45 days, that means an average of more than 11 hours of data per day and more than 12 hours in the truck. Of course, that is only part of the FAST-LVOS story. There is also Alan, Scott, Tim, and Ann keeping the microDop lidar humming along; the Scientific Aviation crew, Zaheer and Dani, (with support from Steve and Justin) flying more than 90 hours in the Mooney; Patrick and Chance launching nearly 30 ozonesondes (2 more to go!); and Jeff, Zack, Steve, and Bill commuting to Angel Peak, driving the mobile lab, keeping the instruments up and running, and getting the data analyzed. All of this hinged on the support of our staff back home who had to put up with frequent travel changes and other logistical headaches. Finally, none of this would have been possible without the support of TOLNet and our colleagues at the Clark County Department of Air Quality including Zheng, Rodney, Paul, Tim, and Mick. Viva FAST-LVOS!
Congratulations on making it to the end, and not being cooked alive!